Great Windows Store apps are connected . They use live tiles, authenticate users with single sign-on and share data between devices and users. To get all these great benefits of being connected, your app needs to use services in the cloud. Building cloud services is hard. Most cloud platforms offer general purpose capabilities to store data and execute code, but you have to author reams of infrastructure code to glue these capabilities together. I’m sure you are up for the challenge, but I bet backend...

For Windows 8, we made some changes in our audio system designed to improve the app experience. In this blog, I discuss these changes, and how you can take advantage of them in your media apps. Hopefully this info helps you better understand how audio works in Windows Store apps, especially when it comes to audio playback in the background. Let me begin by describing a common user scenario. You’re listening to your favorite band in a Windows music app, and a friend sends you an mp3 of a sweet live...

As we continue to innovate on the operating system platform with Windows 8, we also enhanced the toolset available in Visual Studio to increase your productivity in testing your Windows 8 apps. Ensuring a top notch quality of your app in this new modern OS environment through thoughtful design and testing will help increase the success of your app. In a previous blog post on Testing Metro style apps in Windows 8 , we highlighted some of the key areas you need to take into account for building a high...

Two weeks ago we announced that Windows 8 released to manufacturing (RTM). Since then we’ve been preparing builds for distribution as described in the Windows 8 has reached the RTM milestone post on Windows Team blog. I’m happy to let you know that we are now ready with early access builds for developers. In this post I’ll give you some pointers on the best way to get and install the RTM build and I’ll also point you to resources you can use to get your apps up and running...

If you’re developing an app for Windows 8 tablets or convertibles, you have access to cutting edge hardware and software services for sensors and location. By tapping into these hardware capabilities, you can add value to your apps and also make them exciting and useful. Imagine an app that automatically loads a 3D environment based on the user’s current location, and then allows them to navigate the 3D world (pan, tilt) by moving the tablet around in 3D space. The pictures here show a Photosynth...

For Windows 8, we completely reimagined the platform, allowing you to choose the programming language and technologies you already know to build apps tailored to the device and form factor. With the Windows Runtime, you can even easily use multiple languages within a single app. You can build a great Metro style app with HTML and JavaScript that can interact with the Xbox 360 controller through building your own Windows Runtime component in C++. You can build reusable XAML controls exposed via Windows...

With the announcement that Windows 8 has been released to manufacturing (RTM) and will be available for customers to buy on October 26, now is the time to build apps. On August 15 th , all developers can visit the Windows Dev Center to get access to all the tools and resources they need including the RTM release of Visual Studio 2012. In the meantime, check out a selection of free events to help jumpstart your app development. Bringing Windows 8 to developers across the world Since we introduced...